A tube container, which is an example of a tubular container using a sheet material having flexibility, is generally formed by joining a bottom plate to a one-end section of its cylindrical tube to close off the one-end section or by squashing and sealing the one-end section in a flattened state to close it off, as well as by integrally joining a mouth component having a shoulder portion and a mouth-neck portion to the other-end section. The body portion contains, for example, a highly-viscous liquid-form substance as its contents, and the container is used by pressing and deforming the body portion to discharge the contents from the mouth-neck portion. The outer circumferential surface of the mouth-neck portion has, for example, an external thread, and a cap is detachably screwed onto the mouth component through the external thread, allowing the mouth-neck portion to be opened and closed. Further, for example, the cylindrical tube and the mouth component of the tube container are formed using, for example, aluminum or an aluminum-laminated resin having an oxygen barrier property. In this way, the oxygen barrier function prevents deterioration of the contained contents over a long period of time.
Meanwhile, various types of tube containers have been developed depending, for example, on the type of contents and/or their use. For example, a tube container has been disclosed in which the contents are discharged not by pressing of the body portion, but by use of a pump device attached to the mouth-neck portion, which sucks the contents and discharges the same through a nozzle portion of the pump device (see, for example, JP-A-8-11905). Such a tube container utilizes, for example, the mouth-neck portion having the external thread for attaching and fixing the pump device to the mouth component of the tube container via a connection component having an internal thread.
A high oxygen barrier property has been heretofore required of containers for contents that are deteriorated by oxygen, and for example, aluminum tube containers are widely used for containers containing hair-dyeing agents.
Meanwhile, various types of pump-equipped containers having a pump device fixed to the mouth portion of the container body have been proposed for improving container usability. For example, JP-A-8-11905 mentioned above discloses a pump-equipped tube container that uses a pump device fixed to the mouth portion of the container body to suck up the contents put in the container body and discharge the same from a nozzle portion of the pump device.
With products that use two types of agents (a first agent and a second agent), such as two-agent-type hair dyes, which are mixed immediately before use, the first and second agents are filled respectively into separate containers. Heretofore, the contents (the product) have been discharged separately from their respective containers at prescribed rates and mixed upon use, thus complicating the procedure.
On the other hand, there is known a duplex discharge container capable of discharging, with a single operation, the first and second agents respectively from two juxtaposed containers (see, for example, JP-A-2002-119328 and JP-A-2006-306478).